Was it really possible to grow up in Seattle in the 1980s and
1990s and be totally unaware of Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden and
Pearl Jam?

It was for Brandi Carlile. "I had this isolated childhood where
I lived on the outskirts of town and my family listened to, and
performed, country and western music," she says. "That was all
I was interested in at that time.

"It wasn't until my early twenties that I really fell in love
with the music that came out of Seattle when I was a teenager. It
is awful that I didn't get the chance to see Kurt Cobain play at
the Showbox - which is a club that I play now."

Carlile has an emotion-laden, overtly country vocal style. Her
songs are a careful mix of pop with a heavy layering of
confessional lyrics in the style of Shawn Colvin and Mary Chapin
Carpenter.

Her career was moving along smoothly, if not spectacularly,
until the people who choose the end-titles music for the hit
television show Grey's Anatomy decided, with considerable
discrimination, to use three of her songs, Tragedy, What Can I
Say and Throw It All Away. Then, as a true sign of
their admiration, they featured a video of her song The
Story, which was interspersed with footage from the show.

Carlile suddenly had a pop career courtesy of the music chosen
for a TV program. She makes no apologies for this path, arguing
that television shows are the new medium for pop success. "It has
the same impact as radio used to do for new and emerging artists, "
she says. "It gave us an outlet for people who wouldn't normally
hear our music to hear it."

The results were immediate and impressive. "Now people call out
the songs at concerts. That is one of the perks of having your
music exposed on television. Audiences grow. People are familiar
with the lyrics to the songs and want to hear more of them. They
start calling their local radio station and asking to hear the song
that they heard on television."

Carlile is fulsome in her admiration for the Grey's
Anatomy music programmers.

"They've always done a great job using discretion to ensure that
the music pairs with the ideas in a particular episode. They're
looking for atmosphere, lyrics, tempo. They have always been very
clear and non-biased about choosing the music. As a fan of the show
I have found tonnes of new music through that show.

"They can afford to do that. They don't have pressure on them to
choose a hit song or break a band or to have some giant success.
They just want to choose music that goes well with their TV
show.

"As a songwriter I love the idea of a television music program
team listening to a song of mine and choosing it because of how
well it fits with certain dramatic situations. Even fans don't
listen that well."